Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! :)

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday - a time for family and friends to come together and feast!


The photo above is the beginning of a cranberry-pomegranate sauce - a delicious recipe I found in Sunset magazine (scroll down to see the finished product).

This year, I have a big project going on, so I was unable to return home to the Midwest this weekend. However, my mother came to visit me in Burbank last week, and we celebrated early-Thanksgiving with a few friends.

The five of us had a real feast, complete with a 3.7 lb bone-in turkey breast, pancetta-sourdough-apple stuffing, cranberry-pomegranate sauce, roasted sweet potatoes with apples, green beans with lemon breadcrumbs, roquefort-spinach-leek casserole, mixed rice with cream of mushroom, apple pie, and three types of ice cream...!

The spread:

Some of the leftovers and extra ingredients became these cute little pot pies the next day:


I spent Thanksgiving day with my gardener friend in Altadena, who hosted a party of 13. Many of the dishes utilized homegrown ingredients, including eggs, lemons, and squash from her garden.

I brought a fresh batch of cranberry-pomegranate sauce:

And apple pie from my mother's recipe:

Here are a few tidbits of what I've been up to during my silence the last couple months:

• I moved next door to a one-bedroom apartment (owned by the same landlord). A whole glorious 450 sq ft to myself - a 50% upgrade over my previous 290 sq ft studio :)

• The backyard garden at the apartment complex is now all mine, as the neighbor I was working on it with was the one who vacated my now-apartment. Last week I sowed the raised beds with lettuce, spinach, and mixed greens. They are supposed to take 7-10 days to germinate, so I've been eagerly watering and waiting for the seeds to sprout.
  
  
• My new apartment has a private balcony, where the Bokashi bin now lives, as well as...
  
  
• My new worm bin! I am now the proud owner of a full-sized three-tier "Wriggly Wranch", courtesy of the director of Glendale's recycle center. We met at a party for the Altadena Heritage Society over the summer.
  
  
• I'm still helping in the CSA garden in Altadena. The tomatoes, particularly the Yellow Pear variety, did very well in the late summer, especially one week in October when it rained unusually early for SoCal.
  
  

• We've been planting the winter garden now at the CSA with onions, garlic, greens, potatoes, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, and more.

More detailed updates and pictures to come... It's going to be a busy next few weeks, so hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!